Why He Needs You
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Fan's widower begins the tradition of taking his son to invite Scrooge for Christmas dinner.


Why He Needs You

By Laura Schiller

Based on: A Christmas Carol

Copyright: Public Domain

Fred Wilkins stared up in uneasy fascination at the man he had been told was his uncle. Ebenezer Scrooge was pale and red-eyed, as if he had not slept for several years at least. He hunched over his enormous desk like a vulture over a carcass, an impression reinforced by his worn-out black clothes. His brown hair was already streaked with gray, despite the fact that he could not be much older than Fred's father. Richard Wilkins, fresh-faced and handsome, twirling his hat like a nervous schoolboy as he approached the desk, could not have looked more different if they had been twenty years apart.

"And why," said Scrooge, "Should I waste my valuable time coming to this dinner of yours, Dick, when you know perfectly well how busy I am at this time of year?"

"Oh, come now, Ben," Wilkins protested. "No one should be too busy to enjoy themselves at Christmastime."

"Hmph."

"Don't pretend you've forgotten how you used to dance yourself dizzy at the Fezziwigs' ball." Wilkins grinned, and Fred had to disguise a giggle as a cough. The image of this man dancing was simply too absurd.

"Unlike you, I've outgrown such foolishness since then." Scrooge dipped his pen and bent over his writing, apparently bent on pretending his two visitors did not exist.

"Miss Fezziwig will be there," said Wilkins.

Scrooge dropped his pen, spattering ink all over the page, and cursed. He looked up, and his pale face was suddenly flushed. Fred would have liked to ask why, but even at seven years of age, he had enough sense to realize that neither his father nor his uncle would be pleased by the interruption.

"All the more reason for me to remain absent," snapped Scrooge.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" Wilkins rolled his eyes. "Whatever is amiss between the two of you, if you'd only speak to her - "

"Miss Fezziwig has made her wishes very clear. Our engagement is at an end, and nothing you or anyone can say will change that."

Fred was inclined to think that kind, pretty Miss Belle, his favorite governess and the daughter of that jolly fat man who liked to give him candy, had had a narrow escape.

"Why do you do this to yourself, Ben?" Wilkins asked sadly, shaking his head. "We were friends once. Why do you continue to shut out everyone who cares for you?" He put his arm around Fred's small shoulders and drew him close. "To shut out your own flesh and blood?"

Scrooge's eyes flashed with a look of pain that was like nothing Fred had ever seen. His long, thin fingers passed across his face as if to wipe away that look; when they dropped away, those blue eyes were narrow and cold as a pair of icicles.

"You of all people should know better than to ask me that," said Scrooge, in a low, hoarse voice that cut the air like a knife. "For the last time, I have no wish to see that child. If not for him, my sister would still be alive."

Fred's father's arm tightened, as if to shield him from the force of his uncle's contempt. "It was _seven years ago_," he retorted. "Ben, believe me, I understand. I grieve for her as well, every day. But can you honestly believe that she would have wanted you to hold a grudge against her innocent child?"

"Do not presume to tell me what my sister would have wanted." Scrooge rose from his desk with a strained effort at dignity. "You understand nothing."

"Only because you confide nothing!"

"My partner will be returning at any moment," said Scrooge, checking his pocket-watch with unsteady hands. "As we do not accept social calls during business hours, I must ask you both to leave now."

"Ben …"

"Good afternoon."

Wilkins sighed, put on his hat, and turned to leave, gesturing to Fred to do the same. As they crossed the dark, chilly office with its piles of ledgers on the walls, its metal safe looming in a corner, and the fireplace containing a mere handful of coals, something moved Fred to glance back at his uncle's desk. Scrooge had dropped into his seat once more, his face covered by his hands. He looked like an illustration Fred had seen once in a book of fairy tales, a prisoner in a dungeon.

"Merry Christmas, Uncle," he called.

That should have cheered anyone up in his opinion, but Scrooge only flinched as if someone had hit him.

"That's right, son," said Wilkins gently. "End it on a grace note. Ben, old friend, despite your best efforts, I will not give up on you. We will always keep a place for you on Christmas, for Fan's sake and for yours."

"Good afternoon, Richard," was Scrooge's only reply. This time, however, there was no anger in his voice – only sorrow, and the weary echo of something that might have been regret.

Wilkins exchanged quiet greetings with Bob Cratchit, the very young clerk in the drafty corner next to the door, and led his son into the snow and fog of London. Despite the cold wind buffeting their faces, the outside air felt warmer than the office.

"Papa?"

"Yes?"

"Why doesn't Uncle Scrooge like me?"

Wilkins took Fred's mittened hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Only because he doesn't know you."

"But why doesn't he want to know me? Is it … is it because of Mama? Because it's my fault she died?"

"Absolutely not!" For a moment, the good-natured young man looked almost as fierce as Scrooge. "Never believe that, Fred, not for an instant! You were just a baby. There was nothing you or anyone could have done."

"Then why … "

"Heaven knows." Wilkins' sigh came out as a cloud of steam. "Ben Scrooge was always a stubborn old rascal, even before all this. Once he got an idea into his head, there was no getting it out. Your mother was much the same."

"Was she?"

Wilkins smiled wryly. "Oh, yes. Most people would have said they were as opposite as night and day, but most people didn't know them as well as I did. When Ben and I were apprentices together, he used to wear the most disgraceful old coat you can imagine. He looked like a blind scarecrow. When the other fellows laughed at him for not buying himself a new one, all he would say was that he was saving money to support his sister."

Fred was awed. He did not have a sister, but he hated being laughed at by the other boys on his street. To endure such treatment willingly, his uncle must have been very brave, or very fond of Fan, or both.

"Then, come Christmas Day, can you guess what she did with all the money her brother sent her?" Wilkins' eyes twinkled with remembered laughter.

"What?"

"She bought _him _a fine new coat!"

Fred was startled into a smile.

"They had no one but each other for so long, you see. He thinks I don't understand, but I do." Wilkins' mood turned serious again as he thought of all that his friend had lost, and he slowed absently to look up at the flickering golden light of a gas lantern. Fred tried to imagine his father and Scrooge as young men, but could not get a clear picture. Any time before his own birth felt like centuries ago.

"You have her eyes, you know. And his."

Fred glanced at his own reflection in a brightly lit shop-window. His face looked ghostly in front of the elaborate display of china dolls, wooden soldiers and sailing ships. Still, he could make out a pair of wide blue eyes staring at him. Ebenezer Scrooge had blue eyes too, that was true. But _his_ eyes? Was it possible that this cold, unfriendly man had ever been a little boy like Fred?

He thought of his last glimpse of the prisoner in the dungeon, and shuddered.

"I'm not like him!" he protested. "I don't want to be!"

"That's why he needs you, my boy," said Wilkins. "You'll understand when you're older."


End file.
